What are we?

   The question of what it means to belong to a certain race has been asked many times by many people concerned with racial issues. Many people with defined it solely by where one's parents come from. Others would simply define it by the colour of one's skin and other superficial physical features. In his essay "What is this "Black" in Black popular culture?", Stuart Hall attempts to analyze how blacks are viewed in popular culture. He described our culture as one that has transitioned from being completely invisible in earlier times to having a "regulated, segregated visibility". "Black" culture has always been there, influencing American popular culture with their music and art. Hip hip and even rock-and-roll have their roots in African-American culture.
   However, the conclusion of Dr. Hall's essay is what struck me as the most interesting part. His final idea is that, just like the 'American' culture, there is no one 'black' culture. The idea that 'black' culture directly opposes the popular culture instead of influences is not a very progressive one. This seems to me to be the same kind of mindset that the people who create movies and music that completely exclude minorities seem to follow. There is no one way to represent all of black culture in one movie or play because of how we have been scattered across America. Blacks that live in New York are not the same as those who live in Atlanta, as anyone who has spent a day at Howard University can attest. Similarities may exist but there are just as many differences that separate us from each other.
   This issue is only complicated when we considered those of mixed ancestry. Afro-latinos and afro-native americans are rarely ever talked about or acknowledged, even in the essays like Stuart Hall's. He makes no mention of these minorities who could also be considered to fall under the umbrella of African culture yet seem to be invisible to most cultural essayists, even black ones.
   Maybe this why we find it so hard to relate to the movies that are supposedly made for black people. Maybe this is the reason why movies like Tyler Perry are criticized for being stereotypic of blacks rather than representative. It is because we are searching for a quintessential black identity when there really is none. The black culture itself is just as varied as that of America as a whole. Before we can be critical of those who try to represent us and fail we must decide exactly what we want to have represented.

Ethnic Pride Banned?

   It would seem that Arizona has once again become a hotbed for racial issues. Not even two years ago, the state passed a law, SB 1070, that many felt would encourage racial profiling towards Latino-Americans in an effort to cut down on illegal immigration. This year, the Arizona state legislature voted in a 4-1 majority to terminate the Arizona school district's Ethnic Studies program for Mexican-Americans. They also sought to ban various books from their school, many of them teaching latino-centric values and taught to rethink the euro-centric teachings of regular classes. Others, like Shakespeare's "The Tempest", were banned simply because they had a central theme of race and oppression.
   Arizona has a long history of racially charged laws, especially towards Mexican-Americans. During the 1950's Arizona was one of the few states to segregate Mexican-Americans into different schools separate from the whites.(Goddard 2005) The passing of this new law isn't much of a surprise given the state's racial history but still raises questions about why the state finds it necessary to ban these books and abolish these classes. The law, HB 2281, says that it "bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals." However, are classes that teach ethnic solidarity really so bad? Many Mexican-American live in cities where their national heritage is ignored or not treated with the same amount of respect as white and european based cultures. In many cases these classes are the only ones in which these children learn about their past from a Latino perspective.
   It is unfortunate to see the Arizona school board taking away one of the few classes in which Mexican-Americans can be proud and have some sense of togetherness. Once again, it seems, the people who consider themselves 'normal' feel that they have a right to dictate on how things should be. 




Goddard, Terry. (2005) The promise of Brown v. Board of education. Retrieved from: http://www.azag.gov/civil_rights/Brown%20v%20Board%20Monograph.pdf
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/12/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512

The Borderlands

   My Freshman English class this year has a theme that relates to transgressors and the idea of 'normalcy' in today's increasingly multi-cultural society. During our class we talked about how it's main focus would be to examine how afro-latinos and afro-native americans are affected by America's view of what it mean to be 'normal.' As someone who is not from America, it would be very interesting to find out more about the culture and tradition of these people. 

   The way that the 'transgressors have been oppressed and made to feel like outcasts was exemplified in Gloria Anzaldua's Borderland/La Frontera, a book from which we read an excerpt in class. It detailed how the people who live on the US-Mexico borders are viewed as transgressors or aliens by the 'normal' whites who live on the border. Their lives are in constant flux because of their ambiguous nationality. They are neither American nor Mexican. This is similar to another idea presented in W.E.B DuBois's  The Soul of Black Folk, a book in which he writes, "The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self."

Both these passages look at the idea of this double consciousness and the feeling of being in between two cultures. This is a feeling that many celebrities such as Christina Milian and Kat Deluna must have felt, especially since they spend so much time in the public eye. 

   Thankfully, this situation can be analyzed from both a historical and psychological perspective, allowing  us to see how these 'transgressors' came to exist. Hopefully, by understanding how the afro-latino and native american's have been misunderstood and ostracized we can work on removing the borders that the 'normal' people have put between the 'transgressors' and the rest of the world.